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tangleroot_eli's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
tl;dr: If you want a quiet character study of two similar but slightly different women, try this book. If you want an interesting speculative-fiction take on butterfly effect and alternate realities, try something different.
Around the halfway point of this book, I started dreading picking it up. I skipped to the last chapter, to see what I was heading toward. Then I stopped reading. If I'd read twice as much book to get to that nothingburger ending, I would be twice as irate.
Jo Walton's prose is beautiful and her characters well-drawn. But her plots are meh. I always feel like she wants to write English pastoral novels but fell in with the Tor crowd and so has to find ways to write English pastoral novels that somehow also count as spec. This worked excellently with her Thackeray-with-dragons novel Tooth and Claw, but less well here, where I just never understood why we had to follow Patricia's two lives. I wanted something more like the Doctor Who episode "Amy's Choice," where the characters knew from the beginning that one existence was false and that choosing incorrectly would have real consequences. Not only could I not see how Patricia's choice led to two such different worlds, I also couldn't see how it mattered, from a narrative standpoint.
Around the halfway point of this book, I started dreading picking it up. I skipped to the last chapter, to see what I was heading toward. Then I stopped reading. If I'd read twice as much book to get to that nothingburger ending, I would be twice as irate.
Jo Walton's prose is beautiful and her characters well-drawn. But her plots are meh. I always feel like she wants to write English pastoral novels but fell in with the Tor crowd and so has to find ways to write English pastoral novels that somehow also count as spec. This worked excellently with her Thackeray-with-dragons novel Tooth and Claw, but less well here, where I just never understood why we had to follow Patricia's two lives. I wanted something more like the Doctor Who episode "Amy's Choice," where the characters knew from the beginning that one existence was false and that choosing incorrectly would have real consequences. Not only could I not see how Patricia's choice led to two such different worlds, I also couldn't see how it mattered, from a narrative standpoint.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content and Dementia
Moderate: Cancer, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Lesbophobia, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Minor: Bullying, Homophobia, Infidelity, Sexual content, Terminal illness, and Alcohol
Moderate: Ageismadvcroft's review
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse
Moderate: Miscarriage and Dementia